My encounter with Hizb ut-Tahrir
While I was on holiday in Copenhagen last week with my sister, I came across a stall mounted by the Islamic group Hizb ut-Tahrir in one of the city’s main squares. I stood at the stall for a few seconds longer than I should because I was then engaged in conversation with a very articulate young supporter who was born in Morocco, brought up in Denmark, and a fluent English speaker.
According to the Wikipedia page on the organisation: “Hizb ut-Tahrir (Party of Liberation) is “an international pan-Islamic political organization whose goal is for all Muslim countries to unify as an Islamic state or caliphate ruled by Islamic law and with a caliph head of state elected by Muslims.”
It is banned in many countries including Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Turkey, Pakistan, all the former Soviet states in Central Asia, Russia, Germany and the Netherlands. It is legal in Denmark, although there have been problems [see here]. Here, in the UK, a ban was considered but decided against and the organisation is very active [see here].
My debate with the Danish Muslim was very vigorous. I reckon it lasted about half an hour but my sister believed that it was more like an hour. We discussed the religious position of the devout Muslim rather than the political position of Hizb ut-Tahrir.
Since I am an humanist, we debated whether the universe had a creator [my position on God can be found here] and whether humankind needed guidance from the divine to know what is moral [my position on a good life can be found here]. One of his ‘proofs’ for the existence of God was that the universe had to have a First Cause but I argued that in that case logically God has to have a cause. Another of his ‘proofs’ was that the Koran is written in such wonderfully beautiful Arabic that it could not simply be the work of men and its creation was itself a miracle, but I argued that something similar is said by Christians about the Bible and by Jews about the Torah.
Since I am a feminist, we debated why – in my view – Islam (and indeed all major religions) accords an inferior status to women (there are no female imams). He argued that men and women have fundamentally different characters and that women are best suited to childcare and men to intellectual pursuits including interpretation of the Koran. I suggested that all the major religions were created by men and that all the holy books were written by men and that these religions and works simply reflected the sexist attitudes of those times which are no longer appropriate or acceptable.
Neither of us changed the other’s position but it was a respectful dialogue.
August 13th, 2010 at 8:28 pm
Mashallah…glad to read ur experience with one of our bro in copenhegen…im from bangladesh…my suggession to u that u please go through about our worldwide activities and our literatures…plz dont draw any conclusion after having one single conversation and google searching…u know, this media how plays anti-islamic propaganda always…plz use ur rational thinking to understand the existence of creator…open ur mind…u’ll find the truth inshallah…assalamu alaikum…